iPad Pro M1 and M2 iPad Pro too slow?

[rui no onna]

I didn’t expect it to be exactly the same chip. Like the iPad used to have X and Z variants of the A line, and iPads plausibly having some differences in the internal interfacing and power/efficiency requirements compared to the MacBooks. The M1 was very similar to what an A14X would have been. It was even initially rumored under that designation: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/09/a14x-chip-apple-silicon-mac-ipad-pro-4q20/

There’s only one Z variant - A12Z. It’s more of a manufacturing improvement rather than an actual new chip.

2018 iPad Pro - A12X - 7 GPU cores (likely 8 cores but with 1 core disabled)
2020 iPad Pro - A12Z - 8 GPU cores

Mind, the M1 on the entry level $999 2020 MacBook Air (8/256) also has only 7 GPU cores enabled. For the 8 GPU core M1, you’d have to step up to the $1249 2020 MacBook Air (8/512)

 

[ZiBart]

Realistically, in most use cases, an iPad Pro from 6 years ago is still overkill in current form iPadOS. Apple needs to take the shackles off iPadOS and allow the software to take the hardware to its limits, then these incremental updates will allow for more noticeable performance improvements. The headroom in the M series is like driving a convertible. For me, I only leaped to the M series because of the external monitor support.

 

[rui no onna]

The M1 is almost identical to what an A14X would have been. It has only a few changes, mainly to support thunderbolt and an additional display controller. That isn’t enough differentiation to really warrant spinning a whole new piece of silicon.

True. It’s probably cheaper for Apple to recycle the M1 rather than make a downgraded A14X just for the iPad Pros.

 

[randy98mtu]

Still loving my M1 12.9. Hoping to go to an M3 12.9. Starting to consider selling my office desktop machine and just using my iPad to Jump desktop to my Studio Ultra in my home office. Started playing with it this morning and thinking I could get away from having 2 desktops - realizing it’s just adding to clutter in my life.

 

[rui no onna]

Realistically, in most use cases, an iPad Pro from 6 years ago is still overkill in current form iPadOS. Apple needs to take the shackles off iPadOS and allow the software to take the hardware to its limits, then these incremental updates will allow for more noticeable performance improvements. The headroom in the M series is like driving a convertible.

As far as I’m aware, there are no artificial limits imposed on iPadOS preventing app developers from fully utilizing iPad hardware.

With that said, it’s usually in the developers’ best interest to target compatibility with lower models so they can appeal to a wider audience.

 

[Digitalguy]

As far as I’m aware, there are no artificial limits imposed on iPadOS preventing app developers from fully utilizing iPad hardware.

With that said, it’s usually in the developers’ best interest to target compatibility with lower models so they can appeal to a wider audience.

And that's the issue, lower models are RAM starved (3-4 GB) so developers are not incentivize to make apps that take too much memory. So far very few apps are M1 or better only (essentially Final Cut, maybe a game or 2?) or are not suitable for devices with 3-4GB RAM (like Davinci Resolve, which crashes very quickly on those devices).

 

[Digitalguy]

Yeah, agreed. Devices are practically always fast at launch (and they can be forever, if you never update iOS), but Apple always manages to shatter that overhead fairly quickly.

It’s very sad to see amazing iPads now be reduced to garbage, but the saddest part is to see people defending this (“well, it’s old, what do you expect”?”. What?! I expect it to work properly, thank you very much.

Just to give one example (and perhaps the perfect one): the A9 family of devices. iOS 9 and 10? Perfect. The iPhone 6s’ battery life was always only half-decent, but provided you weren’t the heaviest of users, it was enough.

You can even go and read people’s discussions when the iPhone 6s was released, and the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, too, and they said “the biggest leap in quality and speed”, “an iPad that will last years”, “the best iOS device I’ve ever purchased”.

Go see how these devices run. Go see how the 6s runs on iOS 15. How the 1st-gen, 12.9-inch iPad Pro runs, and even worse, see how its little brother, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro runs, with 2GB of RAM, on iPadOS 16. They’re pathetic. My point is that they shouldn’t be.

My 9.7-inch iPad Pro was forced by the A9 activation bug on iOS 9 into iOS 12, and apart from significantly reduced battery life (from 14 hours to 10-11 hours of screen-on time), the device runs almost perfectly. One more update, and it would’ve been completely obliterated. Luckily, as it stands now, I just have to charge it a liiiiiittle more frequently. Apart from that, it’s a pleasure to use. Ask updated users whether they can get any decent battery life from these devices...


...and ask them whether they’re a pleasure to use or if they have to struggle with the devices lagging and bogging down, too.

In my experience with many iPads, what you say is true for iPads with low amounts of RAM (2GB or less), that were severely slown down by updates that made the OS more RAM hungry. To some extent, dual core CPUs like that of the A9X were impacted (but the 12.9 A9x with 4GB RAM aged much better than the 9.7 A9X, I had both). Devices with more RAM and more cores, were not impacted in terms of speed, but only in terms of more reloads. The A10x on iPadOS 17 is as fast as on iOS 12, but reloads more, and faster than the A9X ever was. Same for A12X. Maybe at some point 3GB devices will the next 2GB devices but it's not the case yet. And probably won't be before end of support. So given a suffient amount of RAM and number of cores, iPads don't slow down in any visible way. They just reload more. Battery life is a different story.

 

[6749974]

It's interesting that so many have said OLED is the thing that will drive them to upgrade. I don't have any issue with the quality of the screen on my iPP 2018 11 inch. The colors are rich, resolution is great. Blacks not as deep as OLED, but I find it more comfortable to use for longer periods of time than OLED devices that I have.

When this comparison happens one thing is always missing from the discussion:

The 11-inch iPad Pro you purchased has "ProMotion"—the main selling point being 120Hz. In order for our eye balls to receive 120 frames per second—clear frames—each pixel would need to be able to change colors within 8.3 ms or less. Thats just basic math: 1/120=0.00833333 or 8.3 thousands of a second

Your 2018 iPad Pro changes pixels as slow as 54 ms. That means its 6.5x too slow to properly show you 120 fps. The result is a smudgy image where detail gets lost and blurry as soon as you scroll or move the image. Here's what that looks like. This is the exact opposite of the promise of 120Hz—which is clarity during motion. surprisingly, participating Apple reviewers never bring this up (I wonder why? /sarcasm).

So what solves that? OLED displays have a pixel response of less than 1 ms—far below the 8.3 ms threshold. OLED will bring true 120Hz ProMotion to iPad Pros for the first time. These upcoming iPad Pros will look and feel significantly better in comparison to mini LED and regular edge-lit LCD.

But on the other hand, many people aren't wowed by visual stimulus equally so not everyone is going to jump for OLED. What Apple is counting on is the target customer of an iPad Pro (eg. artists) cares very much about the display quality.

Totally agree with you regarding iPadOS being a bottleneck.

 

[Digitalguy]

When this comparison happens one thing is always missing from the discussion:

The 11-inch iPad Pro you purchased has "ProMotion"—the main selling point being 120Hz. In order for our eye balls to receive 120 frames per second—clear frames—each pixel would need to be able to change colors within 8.3 ms or less. Thats just basic math: 1/120=0.00833333 or 8.3 thousands of a second

Your 2018 iPad Pro changes pixels as slow as 54 ms. That means its 6.5x too slow to properly show you 120 fps. The result is a smudgy image where detail gets lost and blurry as soon as you scroll or move the image. Here's what that looks like. This is the exact opposite of the promise of 120Hz—which is clarity during motion. surprisingly, participating Apple reviewers never bring this up (I wonder why? /sarcasm).

So what solves that? OLED displays have a pixel response of less than 1 ms—far below the 8.3 ms threshold. OLED will bring true 120Hz ProMotion to iPad Pros for the first time. These upcoming iPad Pros will look and feel significantly better in comparison to mini LED and regular edge-lit LCD.

But on the other hand, many people aren't wowed by visual stimulus equally so not everyone is going to jump for OLED. What Apple is counting on is the target customer of an iPad Pro (eg. artists) cares very much about the display quality.

Totally agree with you regarding iPadOS being a bottleneck.

Tried it and indeed I can see the smudgy image on mini-led and regular LCD (not as strong as in the link but definitely visible). I had never noticed it. Try with my Tab S9 (oled 120hz), perfectly smooth. Also tried my old tab s4 (oled 60hz). This one gets somewhat blurry but with no visible "trail" contrary to lcd.
Interesting, not something that bothers me (that fact that I had never noticed proves it), but very interesting nonetheless and an argument for oled.

 

[Rafterman]

When this comparison happens one thing is always missing from the discussion:

The 11-inch iPad Pro you purchased has "ProMotion"—the main selling point being 120Hz. In order for our eye balls to receive 120 frames per second—clear frames—each pixel would need to be able to change colors within 8.3 ms or less. Thats just basic math: 1/120=0.00833333 or 8.3 thousands of a second

Your 2018 iPad Pro changes pixels as slow as 54 ms. That means its 6.5x too slow to properly show you 120 fps. The result is a smudgy image where detail gets lost and blurry as soon as you scroll or move the image. Here's what that looks like. This is the exact opposite of the promise of 120Hz—which is clarity during motion. surprisingly, participating Apple reviewers never bring this up (I wonder why? /sarcasm).

So what solves that? OLED displays have a pixel response of less than 1 ms—far below the 8.3 ms threshold. OLED will bring true 120Hz ProMotion to iPad Pros for the first time. These upcoming iPad Pros will look and feel significantly better in comparison to mini LED and regular edge-lit LCD.

But on the other hand, many people aren't wowed by visual stimulus equally so not everyone is going to jump for OLED. What Apple is counting on is the target customer of an iPad Pro (eg. artists) cares very much about the display quality.

Totally agree with you regarding iPadOS being a bottleneck.

To me, that is a pointless test. No one does that other than to see a problem no one encouters in normal use. Like iPad 12.9 "bloomers" who sit in a pitch black room to see blooming.

 

[Concorde105]

This has been a MacRumors classic. People routinely call older devices slow, and it’s just the impact of updates.

People call the A9X slow, and it certainly isn’t, it just got bogged down by iOS updates. The A5X was lacking in power. The A8 in combination with 1GM of RAM was a little lacklustre. Everything else was obliterated by updates, but it wasn’t slow by itself.

It was certainly great at the time, and for years after.

But even an M1 (not M3) is a full 3 times faster in single core performance and approaching 6.5 times faster in multi-core performance than an A9X, from Geekbench figures (which aren't nearly perfect, but even adding a significant fudge factor, it's still huge). Single core performance makes a big difference in everything.

It's an almost 9-year-old quasi-mobile processor. It is slow compared to what we have now. It's not just the OS updates, it's everything. Go run an internet-page-rendering performance benchmark and the difference will be dramatic, regardless of OS version.

TBF, many people don't notice these things as much, and I'm very much jealous. We get plenty of posts here about how 120hz doesn't seem to make a difference over 60hz, too.

 

[Concorde105]

To me, that is a pointless test. No one does that other than to see a problem no one encouters in normal use. Like iPad 12.9 "bloomers" who sit in a pitch black room to see blooming.

If you've never noticed or are unbothered by the smearing on iPad Pro displays, that's great. If you've never noticed or been bothered by the contrast ratios in a dark room (not remotely only pitch-black, btw), that's also great. I'm quite jealous, I wish I didn't care.

Unfortunately I very much notice both and that's why OLED is a big deal for me (and probably for pretty much everybody who's so excited about OLED)

I mentioned in the above response - there are folks who really care about the difference between 120hz and 60hz, and those who don't. Feels like a different version of that IMO.

 

[Shirasaki]

My M1 iPad Pro is still powerful but I can clearly see it lagging behind, especially in GPU power. More stutter and drop frames in game and general slowdown when running 2 games at the same time, or even run one game and slideover safari, which imo is the worst modern browser in history (Irrelevant to cpu).

Do I want M3? Not necessarily on my iPad but on my MacBook Pro omg the M1 slowdown is even more noticeable. Wish I at least could wait until M1 Pro came out back then. Unfortunately, I can’t upgrade my MacBook on a plan and upgrading iPad makes little sense for me right now.

 

[Shirasaki]

If you've never noticed or are unbothered by the smearing on iPad Pro displays, that's great. If you've never noticed or been bothered by the contrast ratios in a dark room (not remotely only pitch-black, btw), that's also great. I'm quite jealous, I wish I didn't care.

Unfortunately I very much notice both and that's why OLED is a big deal for me (and probably for pretty much everybody who's so excited about OLED)

I mentioned in the above response - there are folks who really care about the difference between 120hz and 60hz, and those who don't. Feels like a different version of that IMO.

Ultimately everyone is different in terms of Their body and sensitivity towards certain things. PWM sensitivity comes in my mind. Also allergic reactions. Then theres company drawing line somewhere, invariably hurting some while not affecting others at all.
I can notice the difference between 60hz and 120hz too but don’t mind much about PWM.

 

[CouldBeWorse]

OLED, hopefully better battery life, and a redesigned keyboard.

 

[6749974]

To me, that is a pointless test. No one does that other than to see a problem no one encouters in normal use. Like iPad 12.9 "bloomers" who sit in a pitch black room to see blooming.

Test?

There is no test.

The point of a faster display is that it creates clarity during motion. Clarity for our senses.

If the pixels don't change at a rate of 8.3 ms or less, then the image will be blurry, which taxes your visual cortex, like not wearing glasses.

Look. Your brain is an organ swimming in fluid. It doesn't feel, see, hear, smell, or taste. As far as senses go, your brain's job is to process signal. It's a signal processor. And it's receiving a ton of signal noise, but in that signal noise it uses algorithms to detect patterns, do a bunch of math, average everything out, and convert that to the illusion of perception at a rate of 13 milliseconds.

To improve sensual experiences—WHICH IS WHY WE BUY NICE THINGS—we want these devices to create less noise, artifact, and distortion. An audiophile does not buy expensive speakers because they look good. An audiophile buys expensive speakers because the components and design were laboriously engineered and constructed to lessen the distortion put out by the speaker. Less distortion → means cleaner signal → means less work is involved for the brain. That is more pleasing to the senses. The auditory cortex is happier. The music becomes more sensual.

60Hz creates jitter (like big steps in a signal rather than a smoother signal). The visual cortex has to average that out, which causes it to work harder than it should. We are stressing our brain the longer we work in front of monitors. 120Hz is better because that lessens the jitter. Brain is happier.

It's not a test.

The problem is Apple is NOT giving us proper 120Hz, so the pixels aren't changing in time, so the visual cortex is receiving blurry noisy signal, not clarity in which to detect patterns. Everytime you scroll, you're causing more work for your brain than if Apple had used a panel with faster pixel refresh.

Apple will improve things by using OLED. Like putting glasses on.

Why does this concept not connect with you?

 

[MacCraig Pro]

Can’t imagine an M series iPad being called slow! I use a 2020 iPad Air and that has an A14 and that definitely isn’t slow at all for the usual iPad tasks.

 

[iPadified]

Realistically, in most use cases, an iPad Pro from 6 years ago is still overkill in current form iPadOS. Apple needs to take the shackles off iPadOS and allow the software to take the hardware to its limits, then these incremental updates will allow for more noticeable performance improvements. The headroom in the M series is like driving a convertible. For me, I only leaped to the M series because of the external monitor support.

The A10X is no longer fast any longer. For doing OS things like navigation the Home Screen, copy some files it is OK. Lighter stuff like web browsing and e mail is OK but not snappy. My work issued A12Z is far snappier. If you do gaming, A10X is not fast enough and I guess video editing it begins be feel slow.

 

[engbren]

So what solves that? OLED displays have a pixel response of less than 1 ms—far below the 8.3 ms threshold. OLED will bring true 120Hz ProMotion to iPad Pros for the first time. These upcoming iPad Pros will look and feel significantly better in comparison to mini LED and regular edge-lit LCD.

My point was that the screen is already very good. Putting a higher quality screen with improved response times will deliver a better user experience yes, but it will not suddenly fix the things that slow me down on the iPad. Those things are all in iPadOS.

 

[FeliApple]

It was certainly great at the time, and for years after.

But even an M1 (not M3) is a full 3 times faster in single core performance and approaching 6.5 times faster in multi-core performance than an A9X, from Geekbench figures (which aren't nearly perfect, but even adding a significant fudge factor, it's still huge). Single core performance makes a big difference in everything.

It's an almost 9-year-old quasi-mobile processor. It is slow compared to what we have now. It's not just the OS updates, it's everything. Go run an internet-page-rendering performance benchmark and the difference will be dramatic, regardless of OS version.

TBF, many people don't notice these things as much, and I'm very much jealous. We get plenty of posts here about how 120hz doesn't seem to make a difference over 60hz, too.

I disagree, but not completely: New devices are faster, but the key aspect of all this is only one: perceived speed.

The aspects that people notice the most are not benchmarks. Sure, newer iPhones and iPads can render and export a 4K video a LOT quicker on, say, iMovie, but whilst a minority of users who do that will notice (and appreciate) the improvements, the vast majority won’t notice that.

What will the majority notice? Quality of use worsening. How? Keyboard lag, dropped frames, dramatic battery life loss, apps crashing due to lack of RAM which is hogged by the newer iOS updates, etc.

For these aspects, a processor is NEVER old enough to see a degradation. Maintain the original iOS version and the keyboard will NEVER lag, apps that do run will run perfectly, there will not be dropped frames throughout the OS, etc. You can grab an A5 device on iOS 5, an A6 device on iOS 6, and while compatibility will render the device unusable for current purposes, the device will run perfectly.

That is what people notice the most. Naturally, they blame the device for being old. And my point is, that’s not the problem.

 

[ZiBart]

The A10X is no longer fast any longer. For doing OS things like navigation the Home Screen, copy some files it is OK. Lighter stuff like web browsing and e mail is OK but not snappy. My work issued A12Z is far snappier. If you do gaming, A10X is not fast enough and I guess video editing it begins be feel slow.

I was referring to A12X released in 2018. And anything since then.

 

[FeliApple]

In my experience with many iPads, what you say is true for iPads with low amounts of RAM (2GB or less), that were severely slown down by updates that made the OS more RAM hungry. To some extent, dual core CPUs like that of the A9X were impacted (but the 12.9 A9x with 4GB RAM aged much better than the 9.7 A9X, I had both). Devices with more RAM and more cores, were not impacted in terms of speed, but only in terms of more reloads. The A10x on iPadOS 17 is as fast as on iOS 12, but reloads more, and faster than the A9X ever was. Same for A12X. Maybe at some point 3GB devices will the next 2GB devices but it's not the case yet. And probably won't be before end of support. So given a suffient amount of RAM and number of cores, iPads don't slow down in any visible way. They just reload more. Battery life is a different story.

I agree that newer devices are better in terms of performance (not battery life), but still. Little things. Apple seemingly can’t - or won’t - solve keyboard lag. People report keyboard lag in the iPhone 11 on iOS 17.

I have two iPhone 6s. One on iOS 13, one on iOS 10. When I type quickly, the one on iOS 13 lags behind my finger. The one on iOS 10 does not. Occasionally dropped frames on the 11, too. Is it all the time? No. Is it device-breaking? No. But it bothers. It’s not that you can’t edit a video because it’s a slugfest. You can do it just fine, but little things start breaking that degrade the quality that you and I know Apple is capable of.

Let alone the complete obliteration of battery life and screen-on time that renders once full-two-day iPhones into unusable, stereotype-confirming “iPhones chase chargers all day” devices.

I think it’s more the quality of the experience dropping than “newer devices with the A12X being unusable”. Like you said, they aren’t, but if those little things start to break, coupled with a significant battery life loss, then people will - going to what the thread said - call older devices “glitchy and with awful battery life”. And the fault falls entirely on one aspect: Garbage updates, not processor speed.

That said: you are completely right on that aspect: RAM improvements help offset part of this. It is utterly undeniable that the experience on a fully updated 3rd-gen iPad Pro with the A12X will be infinitely better than a fully updated 9.7-inch iPad Pro, due to, like you said, increased RAM requirements. Flawless? No. Battery life? Still a lot worse. But the experience itself will be a complete 180 from a 2GB (or 1GB) device.

So much so, that five! major updates in, and people still call the 3rd-gen iPad Pro’s performance great! The typical, seemingly unsolvable battery life destruction, but at least the experience is great. Progress. Interestingly, there have been relatively frequent complaints about the iPhone Xʀ, with 3GB of RAM. Perhaps 4GB is the sweet spot for now. I wouldn’t know whether the Xʀ is as good, because even though I have one, mine is on iOS 12.

That said... are you sure that the cut-off isn’t the A12 instead of the A10X? I’ve read a lot of criticism in terms of performance when it comes to 2nd-gen iPad Pros, unlike 3rd-gen, and that’s ignoring the fact that battery life is complete garbage.

 

[Ctrlos]

As someone who has used a 128gb M1 iPad Pro every day for work for the last 3 years I can tell you right now that at no point in that time have I seen the OS lag, drag, apps be slow to open or for it to skip a beat. Its maybe crashed a few times over the years but then computers weren't meant to be left on permanent standby. No M-series iPad is a slow machine.

 

[6749974]

My point was that the screen is already very good. Putting a higher quality screen with improved response times will deliver a better user experience yes, but it will not suddenly fix the things that slow me down on the iPad. Those things are all in iPadOS.

I acknowledged your point conclusively. I said, “Totally agree with you regarding iPadOS being a bottleneck.”

 

[Digitalguy]

The A10X is no longer fast any longer. For doing OS things like navigation the Home Screen, copy some files it is OK. Lighter stuff like web browsing and e mail is OK but not snappy. My work issued A12Z is far snappier. If you do gaming, A10X is not fast enough and I guess video editing it begins be feel slow.

It's not slower than it was, despite the updates. It's just a matter of perceived speed compared to the A12X/Z. We get used to faster speed with new devices. I don't count gaming or even video editing, just standard browsing, opening apps, split screen etc.
The air 2 felt very slow when I got the 9.7 pro, which felt fast. Then the 10.5 felt faster but the 9.7 still felt good. Then I got used to A12X and 9.7 started feeling not so great. A10X was not as smooth but still pretty good. M1 hasn't changed my perception. Updates have made no difference to speed and responsiveness, not additional lag other than reloads due to RAM.